


The Rhythm of Calling Renarin Kholin Cute

by angryelftwink



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Canon Autistic Character, M/M, post-Rhythm of War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27854898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angryelftwink/pseuds/angryelftwink
Summary: Renarin stops to talk to Rlain. Maybe that's a mistake, given that he has a huge, embarrassing crush on him. Then again, maybe it's not.
Relationships: Renarin Kholin/Rlain
Comments: 33
Kudos: 122





	The Rhythm of Calling Renarin Kholin Cute

**Author's Note:**

> hey did you guys see it's WoB that Renarin has a secret crush on someone

“Sja-anat’s nice.”

Rlain hummed a few notes without turning his head, the pattern Renarin thought meant ‘welcome’ or perhaps ‘my friend’. They were the notes that usually accompanied scooting to the side, welcoming Renarin to take a seat beside him. He sat gladly, looking upon the fields with Rlain.

“I like what I heard of her so far.” Rlain usually didn’t look at Renarin for just an idle conversation. It was something Renarin appreciated a great deal. He supposed if you were learning how humans liked to be talked to, and you were a good sight better at it than Renarin, it might be easy to also learn how the weird humans liked it. And Renarin liked to look at the fields instead of each other.

Renarin had only seen farmland from carriages before Urithiru. He had a vague idea what Alethi plants looked like, but not all these plants were from Alethkar. They were a bizarre mix of sizes, shapes, colors, scents. He had avoided trying most of them, unless someone slipped them in the stew, but that hardly told him what they were like.

“There are some berries growing ripe over there,” said Rlain. “Edible, but tart and astringent like Shin wine.”

“Is that how you like them?”

“No. They’re a bit bitter for me. But I heard you telling Lopen you liked Shin wine a few days ago.”

Renarin blushed. That was another reason he  _ much _ preferred not looking at each other as they talked. “I like intense things,” he said, heart pounding. He was somehow convinced this was digging himself into a pit. “Bitter, sour, spicy. It’s part of why I have an affinity for wine. I’ve never had a spicy wine. I’ve had spiced wines but not spicy. I think it could be good. People like alcohol to have some pain. Veil would— Veil would  _ have _ enjoyed it, I think.”

“Well, you can come get spices from these fields to put in your wine, if you like. Technically I should tell you to put in a requisition, but I let people come pick as they will. Only if I like them, of course.”

Why, why,  _ why _ did he have to blush more at that? Of course Rlain liked him. They were bridgemen, comrades. Brothers in arms, and now brothers in Sja-anat’s children.

Renarin made a mental note to apologize to Adolin sometime. Probably when he finally broke and did the thing he had sworn never to do: get down on his knees and beg his brother for dating advice.

“What would you recommend?” Renarin gulped down his shaking nerves. Little black spren twisted and crawled in armies around him. Rlain hummed a few more notes—Renarin thought of those as calm or contentment, a simple statement that Rlain was happy in that moment.

Rlain answered to that same Rhythm, and the anxietyspren faded to a more manageable number. “There’s an experiment to see if Rhythms can change the flavor of food. The latest theory is that Resolve might make them spicier. Come by in a few weeks and see for yourself.”

“Not your theory, I take it.”

“No. I think a Rhythm like Joy will make all the food taste better.”

“Then I guess it depends on if you think tasting spicier is tasting better. Perhaps Cultivation doesn’t, and so to get a spicy plant you play… ah, Scolding? Reprimand?”

“Reprimand.” Renarin knew this Rhythm by name—Praise. Rlain liked to hum it to plants. “I think it’s all about intent, like your aunt discovered with the Rhythm of War. If you intend the plant to be spicy, it knows and will obey or not as it chooses.”

Renarin nodded. “I think,” he said, “I know how you can make the plants you grow spicy.”

“How?”

“You grow a spicy plant in the first place.”

Rlain laughed. “Now that’s an approach your aunt’s scholars haven’t considered.”

They sat there for a moment, watching a distant assistant pour a bucket of water into the irrigation pipes.

“You were… humming,” Rlain said.

Renarin started. Calm yourself, Renarin. It’s only Rlain. If anyone wasn’t going to scold you for humming… “What was I humming?”

“Joy.” Rlain snorted. “Well, almost Joy. You’re picking them up pretty fast. Sigzil’s a little better, but he practices.”

“Oh.” He was going to just turn red permanently. It would match Glys and everyone would be horribly afraid of him, but it would just be from blushing too much. (It would match Rlain, too. That made him blush even more.) “Well, I… I feel joy.”

“Good. Most of your natural Rhythms are unpleasant ones.”

“Most of my… what?”

Rlain shrugged. He put one hand on the ground, nodding at Renarin to watch, and tapped his fingers in a pattern that made Renarin’s own hand itch.

“You tap your fingers like that when you don’t want anyone to talk to you. It’s not really a Rhythm. It’s not from Roshar, just from you.”

“I always tap my fingers the same way?”

“Essentially. I don’t think anyone but a Singer would notice. We just… listen for it.”

Renarin reached out and tapped his fingers, idly.

“The ground is vibrating,” he noted. “Is it the Sibling’s Rhythm, or just this room’s?”

Rlain tilted his head, then pressed his palm to the ground. “Mostly this room,” he said slowly. “But just a hint of the Rhythm of the Sibling.”

“Am… am I not supposed to be able to feel that?”

“You’re sensitive like that. Most humans aren’t.” Rlain shrugged, still feeling the rhythms in the ground. “Some are. It’s just that as far as I know, you haven’t got any Singer blood in you.”

“Ah. Yes. The ancient humans and Singers intermarried.”

Oh no. Oh  _ no. _ Would pulling back be suspicious? Would not pulling back expose how he blushed at the word?

“As some will again, I suspect. That’ll be nice to see.” Rlain snorted. “And then seeing their children be more hated than even I am.”

“So, you’re not… planning on it? Yourself?”

Was that smooth? It wasn’t smooth. It was the very opposite of smooth.

“I don’t know. Maybe things will get better. But you know how it is, Renarin. That’s why you chose me for the spren, right? You’ve forsworn the lighteyes but can never be darkeyes, raised Alethi but too Riran for them, and you told me once you don’t even feel human sometimes… so we go to Sja-anat, traitor to Odium but never to be trusted by  _ our _ side either.”

Renarin’s chest twisted and pounded. “I thought… I thought you needed to live in the place between too. And I knew Sja-anat and her children could love you in a way that maybe… maybe the honorspren weren’t ready to. The way you deserve.”

“Renarin…”

Renarin cast his eyes to the ground, to their hands next to each other.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but… you might want to look at yourself.”

He jolted upright and immediately started inventorying himself. Was he blushing horribly? More anxietyspren began crawling around him, contrasting the red snowflakes that fell here and there—

The  _ passionspren _ that fell here and there around him.

“So… What you said about if I’d consider marrying a human…”

“I… I don’t… I just say things sometimes and don’t think and it’s—um—I just have a lot of feelings about… Sja-anat… and how… awful humans are… to your people..?”

“You know, you tapping the same rhythm when you’re nervous isn’t the only thing I’ve noticed. I’ve also noticed that you’re rather cute when you babble.”

“I don’t—yes I— _ Rlain _ _!_ ” He waved his hands around affrontedly.

“And, as I thought, telling you you’re cute would annoy you enough to calm down.”

Renarin lowered his hands, affrontedly.

“Wait.  _ Do _ you think I’m cute?”

Rlain gave a grunt. “Is there a good answer to that?” He shrugged. “When I see you, I attune Praise. I don’t have a better answer.”

He squirmed. “I’m sorry for panicking.”

“You shouldn’t apologize for that. I’m attuned to Anxiety.”

“All right. I apologize for attuning you to Anxiety.”

“That isn’t how it…” Rlain paused. “And you  _ know _ that, don’t you?”

“You should know by now. I always try to apologize as amusingly as possible. It’s cute.”

Rlain laughed. “So, you… know courtship isn’t the same, for Listeners.”

“I know.”

And here it came, what Renarin had always known could be the only outcome.

“Good. Let’s try the human way first. You go let your brother dress you up and I’ll go tell Bridge Four, and you’ll come around to my quarters to escort me to a bar of your choice tonight.”

“Oh.” Renarin tried to steady his breathing. “A date? You want to go… on a date? Just us?”

“I  _ believe  _ that’s how humans do it.”

“Blood of my fathers. I mean—” Renarin sprang to his feet. “Yes! Yes. I’d love to—I know exactly—Not that I’ve thought about this, I mean not that much, maybe once or twice or—You’re going to call me cute again.” He set his jaw, looking down at Rlain, who was grinning like a maniac.

“I’m going to invent a new Rhythm. It will be the Rhythm of Calling Renarin Kholin Cute.”

“I’ll live so long as you don’t teach it to Lopen.” Renarin was also grinning like a maniac. He realized that now. He decided to go on grinning and bouncing on his toes like a maniac. “Right. I’ll come back to… to escort you. On our date.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Renarin turned to go, everything in his heart singing  _ date with Rlain date with Rlain date with Rlain _ to what he thought was the Rhythm of Joy. Suddenly, he thought and turned.

“Wait. You said the human way…  _ first _ .”

“Yes. This is the human way, right?”

“So… Listener way, second?”

Rlain snorted. “I’ll tell you the Listener way later. I don’t think you’d like it. No… if the human way doesn’t work, we’ll try the same way we do everything else.”

Renarin somehow,  _ somehow _ felt his grin grow even wider. “Our own.”

“See you tonight, Renarin.”

As Renarin almost danced out into the hall, he heard Rlain humming a new Rhythm—more joyful even than Joy.


End file.
